On Thu Dec 27, 2012 at 1:08 PM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:
>On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 12:18 PM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:12 AM, Zack Exley <zexley at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>>
>>> "Maximizing" for us means raising our budget
>>> with as little negative impact on the projects as possible
>>
>> Where do you find that meaning or any suggestion of it in the
>> unanimous resolution of the board of 9 October 2010?
>>
>> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_princ…
>
> That is in fact what was meant (evident on the discussion page on Meta):
> the foundation should aim to maximize fundraising efficiency; or support
> raised per unit of fundraising activity.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Draft_Guiding_principles_with_regards_t…
That appears to be a draft which was never deliberated by or approved
by the Board of Trustees. Is there any reason it should take
precedence over the Board's unanimous resolution to achieve "the
highest possible overall financial support for the Wikimedia movement,
in terms of both financial totals and the number of individuals making
contributions"?
> Maximizing the activity itself - fundraising 24/7/365.2524 - would reduce
> the usefulness of the projects.
I am certainly not suggesting that fundraising occur 24/7, but only
that it follow our established traditional patterns in a manner which
allows us to pay salaries competitive with similar labor performed in
the same area. It is quite clear that relying on "the mission" in lieu
of competitive pay for junior employees does not support the kind of
employee retention and satisfaction which the Foundation has enjoyed
in the past.
On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Matthew Roth <mroth at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 27, 2012 at 10:18 AM, James Salsman <jsalsman at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> During the past year has the ratio of the Foundation's top executive
>> pay to the pay of junior staff and contractors increased by more than
>> 50%?
>
> James, I'm not going to get too far into the other specifics of this really
> (for me) perplexing and troubling thread, but I personally wish this piece
> of your litany would stop....
Matt, the rest of your message had absolutely nothing about the
Foundation's salary ratios in it, but I can understand why it might be
the most troubling for you because of the problems that income
inequality is causing in society in general. There are three times as
many homeless children today as in 1983, a new record high this year:
http://www.coalitionforthehomeless.org/pages/state-of-the-homeless-2012
But how often do we hear about that on the news?
> salaries have been pegged to be somewhere
> between similar non-profits and similar tech companies, understanding that
> our sweet spot is both as a tech company and also as a mission-driven
> change-the-world type of place.
Is this a data-derived conclusion, or was this "sweet spot" which has
resulted in record employee turnover derived without measurement? Can
you find any San Francisco nonprofits with worse employee satisfaction
scores on Glassdoor.com than the Foundation's? I haven't been able to.
> We also have excellent benefits. I was recently married and my wife will be
> joining my health insurance on January 1 because it is more generous than
> hers (she works at an emergency room in the premier hospital in the area).
As someone who believes that Canadian style single payer health care
is the only reasonable option for the U.S. at this point, I wonder how
much this desensitizes you and your colleagues. Please see
http://lanekenworthy.net/2011/07/10/americas-inefficient-health-care-system…
> this is the most current iteration of a type of thread
> that I find contributes a great deal of stress to my work here. There are a
> number of assumptions that strike me as bad faith and many of them are
> targeted at people I work with (some of them I consider friends), so it is
> very difficult for me to read this
I find it extremely difficult to believe that anyone could think my
proposal that the salaries of Foundation employees be increased so
that none of them are less than 50% of the top executive salary is
made in bad faith or "targeted" towards anyone.
Sincerely,
James Salsman
Forwarding on from Wikipedia Announce list. For those who haven't
already seen the thank you banner at the top of English Wikipedia, you
need to be logged out to view it.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Matthew Roth <mroth(a)wikimedia.org>
To: press-release(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Cc:
Date: Thu, 27 Dec 2012 15:46:51 -0800
Subject: [PRESS RELEASE] Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in
record time during 2012 Wikipedia fundraiser
(This press release is also available online at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_rai…
The Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012
Wikipedia fundraiser
More than 1.2 million Wikipedia readers donated to keep Wikipedia and
sister sites ad free and free to all
SAN FRANCISCO, December 27, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the
non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today
announced the successful completion of its ninth annual fundraising
campaign in record time. Wikipedia readers donated $25 million and
once again affirmed the value of the project by guaranteeing that the
online encyclopedia will remain ad-free.
"I'm grateful that the Wikipedia fundraiser was so successful. Our
supporters are wonderful and without them we could not do the job of
delivering free content worldwide," said Sue Gardner, Executive
Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "We're thrilled to be able to
introduce our readers to the editors around the world who create
Wikipedia and to invite our readers to join in editing."
Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server
infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number of
editors, improve and simplify the software that supports our projects,
and make Wikipedia accessible globally to billions of people who are
just beginning to access the internet.
More than 1.2 million donors contributed to the 2012 campaign, which
ran on English Wikipedia in 5 countries (United States, Canada, Great
Britain, Australia and New Zealand) for only 9 full days, down from 46
days in 2011. The most successful 24-hour period for donations this
year brought in $2,365,564 million from 145,573 donors. Messages and
formats optimized in this year's campaign will be used in another
short fundraising drive for the rest of the world in April 2013.
Though the fundraiser is an important part of Wikipedia's success,
volunteer contributors are the heart of the world's largest
encyclopedia. To highlight the tens of millions of hours they put into
the projects each year, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a thank
you campaign with short videos that showcase some of the roughly
80,000 volunteer editors, photographers and free-knowledge advocates
from around the world who regularly contribute to Wikimedia projects.
The campaign starts on December 27th and runs through the end of the
year.
Meet all the Wikimedians who we're profiling in our thank you campaign
here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All
Some of the Wikimedians being profiled:
Mei Jiun Kwek is a botanist from Malaysia who uploads photos to
Wikimedia Commons to accompany her work on crop species in her
country. She encourages researchers to share their material on a
freely licensed database to improve open access to knowledge.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_-_Mei_Jiun_K…
and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGotJ927YM)
Dumisani Ndubane is an electrical engineer from South Africa who
started uploading his circuit analysis class notes to Wikiversity, a
project supporting open educational resources, which did not have much
information in his field at the time. By participating with volunteers
from around the world, Ndubane not only grew to appreciate the value
of collaboration, he helped improve the quality of free tutorials and
coursework.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Dumisani_Ndu…
and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXvhABH-jFs)
Adrianne Wadewitz is a professor from California who uses Wikipedia as
a teaching tool in her classroom and helps her faculty peers to
incorporate digital technology in their teaching and research methods.
She describes a memorable moment when one of her students turned in an
essay largely plagiarized from a Wikipedia article Wadewitz had
written.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Adrianne_Wad…
and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwZ7jL4xyY)
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them
the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November
2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of
roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the
Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded
primarily through donations and grants.
Press contact:
Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415-839-6885 x6635
mroth(a)wikimedia.org
--
Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
+1.415.839.6885 ext 6635
www.wikimediafoundation.orghttps://donate.wikimedia.org
(This press release is also available online at:
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Press_releases/Wikimedia_Foundation_rai…
The Wikimedia Foundation raises $25 million in record time during 2012
Wikipedia fundraiser
More than 1.2 million Wikipedia readers donated to keep Wikipedia and
sister sites ad free and free to all
SAN FRANCISCO, December 27, 2012 - The Wikimedia Foundation, the
non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister projects, today
announced the successful completion of its ninth annual fundraising
campaign in record time. Wikipedia readers donated $25 million and
once again affirmed the value of the project by guaranteeing that the
online encyclopedia will remain ad-free.
"I'm grateful that the Wikipedia fundraiser was so successful. Our
supporters are wonderful and without them we could not do the job of
delivering free content worldwide," said Sue Gardner, Executive
Director of the Wikimedia Foundation. "We're thrilled to be able to
introduce our readers to the editors around the world who create
Wikipedia and to invite our readers to join in editing."
Donations help the Wikimedia Foundation maintain server
infrastructure, support global projects to increase the number of
editors, improve and simplify the software that supports our projects,
and make Wikipedia accessible globally to billions of people who are
just beginning to access the internet.
More than 1.2 million donors contributed to the 2012 campaign, which
ran on English Wikipedia in 5 countries (United States, Canada, Great
Britain, Australia and New Zealand) for only 9 full days, down from 46
days in 2011. The most successful 24-hour period for donations this
year brought in $2,365,564 million from 145,573 donors. Messages and
formats optimized in this year's campaign will be used in another
short fundraising drive for the rest of the world in April 2013.
Though the fundraiser is an important part of Wikipedia's success,
volunteer contributors are the heart of the world's largest
encyclopedia. To highlight the tens of millions of hours they put into
the projects each year, the Wikimedia Foundation will conduct a thank
you campaign with short videos that showcase some of the roughly
80,000 volunteer editors, photographers and free-knowledge advocates
from around the world who regularly contribute to Wikimedia projects.
The campaign starts on December 27th and runs through the end of the
year.
Meet all the Wikimedians who we're profiling in our thank you campaign
here: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Thank_You_All
Some of the Wikimedians being profiled:
Mei Jiun Kwek is a botanist from Malaysia who uploads photos to
Wikimedia Commons to accompany her work on crop species in her
country. She encourages researchers to share their material on a
freely licensed database to improve open access to knowledge.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_-_Mei_Jiun_K…
and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zcGotJ927YM)
Dumisani Ndubane is an electrical engineer from South Africa who
started uploading his circuit analysis class notes to Wikiversity, a
project supporting open educational resources, which did not have much
information in his field at the time. By participating with volunteers
from around the world, Ndubane not only grew to appreciate the value
of collaboration, he helped improve the quality of free tutorials and
coursework.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Dumisani_Ndu…
and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXvhABH-jFs)
Adrianne Wadewitz is a professor from California who uses Wikipedia as
a teaching tool in her classroom and helps her faculty peers to
incorporate digital technology in their teaching and research methods.
She describes a memorable moment when one of her students turned in an
essay largely plagiarized from a Wikipedia article Wadewitz had
written.
(Video link on Wikimedia Commons:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Impact_of_Wikipedia_Adrianne_Wad…
and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qwZ7jL4xyY)
About the Wikimedia Foundation
http://wikimediafoundation.orghttp://blog.wikimedia.org
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization that operates
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. According to comScore Media Metrix,
Wikipedia and the other projects operated by the Wikimedia Foundation
receive more than 483 million unique visitors per month, making them
the fifth-most popular web property world-wide (comScore, November
2012). Available in 285 languages, Wikipedia contains more than 24
million articles contributed by a global volunteer community of
roughly 80,000 people. Based in San Francisco, California, the
Wikimedia Foundation is an audited, 501(c)(3) charity that is funded
primarily through donations and grants.
Press contact:
Matthew Roth
Global Communications Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
Tel. +1 415-839-6885 x6635
mroth(a)wikimedia.org
(to unsubscribe from this press release distribution list, reply to
this email with "unsubscribe" in the subject line)
_______________________________________________
Please note: all replies sent to this mailing list will be immediately directed to Wikimedia-l, the public mailing list of the Wikimedia community. For more information about Wikimedia-l:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
_______________________________________________
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> The annual audit of the Wikimedia Foundation, for the fiscal year ending
> June 30, 2012 and the corresponding FAQ have been posted on the financial
> reports <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Financial_reports> page of the
> Wikimedia Foundation web site.
>
> Please contact me with any questions.
Garfield,
During your IRC office hours of April 12, 2012, you appeared to accept
and speak highly of the suggestion that the Foundation transfer the
bulk of its cash reserves from Citibank certificates of deposit to
federally insured credit union certificates of deposit, which were
then and still paying about four times as much interest. It is unclear
from the auditors' statements whether you accomplished this. Did you?
Sincerely,
James Salsman
Dear all,
The next WMF metrics and activities will take place on Thursday,
January 10, 2013 at 7:00 PM UTC (11 AM PST). Please note that on this
occasion we are holding this meeting on the second Thursday of
January, but we will resume holding the meetings on the first Thursday
of each month thereafter.
The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office* *on irc.freenode.net and the
meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream.
The current structure of the meeting is:
* Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also
specialized reports and analytics* Review of financials* Welcoming
recent hires* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on
highest priority initiatives* Update and Q&A with the Executive
Director, if available
Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings
for further information about how to participate.
We'll post IRC logs and the video recording publicly after the meeting.
Thank you,
Praveena
--
Praveena Maharaj
Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development
+1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689
www.wikimedia.org
Federico,
Thank you for your very helpful reply. I'm sorry, I didn't realize
that Glassdoor.com results were client location specific. You can use
a proxy terminating in the U.S. to read about Wikimedia Foundation
employee satisfaction and compensation relative to other San Francisco
technology firms.
> Your proposal has already been implemented in 2010:
> «All Wikimedia fundraising activities must aim to raise the maximum
> possible amount of money [...]»
> <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Developing_Scenarios_for_fu…>
> «Fundraising activities in the Wikimedia movement should generally be
> directed at achieving the highest possible overall financial support [...]»
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Wikimedia_fundraising_princ…
This is most helpful for allowing fundraising to continue without the
need for a Board resolution without a meeting, or for more specific
trustee candidate questions if it does not.
> Are you asking to amend
> <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Delegations_of_Financial_an…>
Is there any reason that subsequent specific direction can not be
provided without amending that resolution?
> Are you asking to amend
> <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus>?
Not necessarily, but I am asking that it be reconsidered after
community consultation. That resolution was approved without a widely
announced community discussion, which is so completely unprecedented
for a change of that magnitude that I could not believe it at the
time. The comments at
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus
show that the Foundation staff and trustees are very much opposed to
the opinions of the few members of the community who found that page
in time to comment.
For that reason I will be recommending specific community initiatives
during next year's Board elections.
Best regards,
James Salsman
Hi there,
there is an upcoming local event in kosovo that I would ilke to tell you
about.
if anyone is interested in taking part in this , please tell me and or
arianit. Also we are interested in getting swag from wikimedia as well for
this.
Arianit is organizing this. (website is coming) :
Wikipedia Academy Kosovo will encourage the creation of high-quality
content - both photos and articles - on Wikipedia English by students and
others in Kosovo. The Academy will be a 3-day event organized in
Prishtina, Kosovo on 22-24 February. Participants will be recruited from
high schools and universities around Kosovo. They will be encouraged to
form teams from their schools with a faculty mentor to sponsor them. To
help prepare for the Academy, the organizers will conduct presentations
introducing students to the wiki editing process, appropriate content
creation and help students form teams at their schools. Best articles and
photos will be awarded prizes.
Participants will hear from local, regional and international experts to
improve their understanding of and purpose Wikipedia, the foundation of
open source knowledge and how to prepare high quality articles. On day two,
the participants will organize into teams to generate new content that will
be edited and posted during the event. On day three participants will post
their content to Wikipedia and Wikivoyage.
--
James Michael DuPont
Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova http://flossk.org
Saving wikipedia(tm) articles from deletion http://SpeedyDeletion.wikia.com
Contributor FOSM, the CC-BY-SA map of the world http://fosm.org
Mozilla Rep https://reps.mozilla.org/u/h4ck3rm1k3
Free Software Foundation Europe Fellow http://fsfe.org/support/?h4ck3rm1k3
Kat Walsh
Chair
Board of Trustees
Wikimedia Foundation
In accordance with your discretionary power to divert from the Board
deliberation procedures approved July 8, 2010,[1] and because of
certain recent serious misleading and contradictory statements from
senior Foundation staff and obvious financial accounting regularities
concerning the Board's direction that the Foundation maintain a six
month cash reserve, and for the other reasons stated below, I ask that
you and the Board approve the following or a substantially similar
resolution without a meeting in accordance with Article IV, Section
4(f) of your Bylaws[2] as soon as possible, and no later than this
week:
Whereas the Foundation's mandatory fiduciary duty of care requires
that trustees act on a fully informed basis;[3]
whereas the trustees were led to believe on May 12, 2012 that senior
Foundation staff were in doubt as to whether they could significantly
exceed last years' fundraising;[4]
whereas in fact senior Foundation staff knew on May 11, 2012 that they
were already able to exceed the performance of the best performing
fundraising message from 2011;[5]
whereas based on the information pertaining to Fundraising provided by
senior Foundation staff, the 2012-2013 Annual Plan was proposed and
adopted with a revenue target increase of $7.2 million, or $900,000
less than the previous Annual Plan's revenue target increase;[6]
whereas actual fundraising far exceeded the stated expectations of
senior Foundation staff, so much that the nominal fundraising goal
based on the stated expectations of senior Foundation staff was
achieved in about nine days of unlimited fundraising messaging to
Foundation project readers;[7]
whereas ceasing Fundraising prior to the last four business days of
December in unprecedented in the history of the Foundation;[7]
whereas the last four business days of December have over the previous
five years yielded fundraising performance typically about triple the
performance of the median fundraiser day's performance;[7]
whereas senior Foundation staff have proposed fundraising next year in
part during April, which this year was in fact the last month that
senior Foundation staff were not able to produce a fundraising message
outperforming those of the prior year's fundraiser;[8]
whereas the tax code of the United States and other countries provide
an incentive for wealthy donors to determine the optimal amount of
their donations during the last week of December;
whereas the Foundation staff has failed to maintain a six month cash
reserve as directed by the trustees, even with lower than expected
expenses and higher than expected revenues;[9]
whereas junior Foundation staff are compensated substantially below
that of typical advanced information processing technology workers in
San Francisco;[10]
whereas because of their low levels of compensation, the retention of
foundation technical staff has been substantially below optimal
levels;[11]
whereas because of their low levels of compensation, junior foundation
technical staff are often unable to afford housing which does not
involve a lengthy commute from unsavory neighborhoods;[11]
whereas the ratio of the compensation of Foundation executives to
junior foundation staff and contractors has substantially widened in
recent years;[10]
whereas Foundation staff have been unable or unwilling to effectively
staff programs such as the very successful Wikimedia Education Program
at levels preventing serious problems for the editor community, such
as, for example, including sufficient information to discern which
articles are currently pending in the Education Program;[12]
whereas the Foundation Annual Plan as amended lacks sufficient funding
to explore telepresence options for those who can not attend events
such as Wikimania or chose not to attend for ecological reasons;
and whereas senior Foundation staff have recently discontinued major
programs of the Annual Plan and the Strategic Plan without consulting
the community,[13]
therefore, be it resolved, that the Foundation will resume fundraising
at maximal levels immediately until such time as sufficient funds are
raised such that:
staff salaries and contractor compensation can be increased so no
contributor is compensated less than 50% of the amount of the highest
compensated executive staff member, calculated on a per-hour basis for
contractors;
a one year contingency cash reserve can be maintained;
sufficient staff can be added to the Education Program so that program
article talk page templates can be provided with their correct
academic calendar dates;
the Wikimania program can include a telepresence pilot program;
and the recent discontinuation of programs approved in the Annual Plan
such as the Fellows program can be put to a question of the community
with sufficient time for thorough consultation.
Please let me know your and the trustees' decision on this matter.
Best regards,
James Salsman
[1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Board_deliberations
[2] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Bylaws#.28f.29_Action_Without_a_Meeting.
[3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_board_manual#Fiduciary…
[4] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Brea…
[5] http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fundraising_2012/We_Need_A_Brea…
"...we can feature Jimmy, editors, staff, donors and others and make
as much as with our standard money-maker, the Jimmy appeal...."
[6] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/2012-2013_Annual_Plan_Questions_and_Ans…
[7] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:FundraiserStatistics
[8] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Fundraising_2012#Questions
[9] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WMF_Revenue_%26_Expenses_October_2012_-…
[10] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Forum#Wikimedia_employee_salaries
[11] http://www.glassdoor.com/GD/Job/jobs.htm?clickSource=searchBtn&typedKeyword…
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_Ambassador_Program_student_…
[13] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Sue_Gardner/Narrowing_focus
